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Twenty five years ago I began speaking and writing on an original topic that I call Pulse Patterning. This transformational technique, which can benefit all seated musicians, is based on a technique by Mosche Feldenkrais, the noted practitioner of mind-body awareness, for reeducating the body to find comfort and ease while sitting.

A FRESH LOOK AT TECHNIQUE

A FRESH LOOK AT TECHNIQUE

No matter whether you become a pianist or violinist, a dancer, or an accomplished athlete, it takes years of training to develop the refinements of your technique and art. Pianists and instrumentalists focus their attention on fingers, wrists, arms and shoulders. However, I would like to propose that a functional use of the hips while sitting is as equally important as the skillful use of the hands. This inclusion of the hips as part of a performer’s technique has been historically ignored. Free and purposeful movement in the hips will create an integrated and holistic technique for any seated performer…pianist, violinist, cellist, flutist, et al.

CHARLES ASCHBRENNER

Recently retired from Hope College in Holland, Michigan, after a career of 45 years, Charles Aschbrenner now holds the appointment of Adjunct Professor Emeritus of Music. He has lectured and performed both as soloist and collaborative pianist throughout Michigan and the Midwest as well as in Mexico Portugal, France, and Russia. With degrees from Illinois and Yale he continued his studies with renowned teachers Nadia Boulanger in France and Adele Marcus in New York City.

His piano students have entered graduate programs throughout the country and ultimately have entered careers in teaching, performance, church work, and opera and musical theater coaching and direction.

Also a licensed instructor from the New York Dalcroze School of Music, Aschbrenner continues to teach the required Euthythmics component of the music major program at Hope College.

Additionally trained in the Taubman, Alexander and Feldenkrais work, Charles Aschbrenner has long been interested in the use of the body in its most efficient, unified and creative manner leading to a virtuoso and musical technique free of limitations, stiffness, pain and injury.

His innovative presentation “Pulse Patterning” was first given at the 1993 national conference of Music Teachers National Association in Spokane, and has continued to serve as a basis for articles, a website, and presentations at international conferences including MTNA in Toronto, World Piano Pedagogy Conference in Las Vegas and EPTA in Novi Sad, Serbia. MORE ABOUT EARLY YEARS

January 5, 2016

To help train students to find freedom at the hips when sitting, there are some helpful warm-up exercises to get the body moving. At the piano, I have students grasp the piano at the top of the fall board, hands next to each other, and then ... READ MORE

February 8, 2016

After doing some warm-up circles, it’s time to take Pulse Patterning to your instrument. Each instrumentalist can find simple technical exercises to do while moving forward and back, side to side, and especially in circles. From ... READ MORE

March 15, 2016

If, as an instrumentalist you are comfortable sitting full back in the chair and using the chair back for support and without compromising technique or musicianship, then you are safe. For most performers there is a need to sit more forward ... READ MORE

PULSE PATTERNING WILL:

Provide you a way to move in an orderly and fluent manner while breathing as needed.

Reduce the tension in your back, shoulders, hamstrings, psoas, and other parts of your torso that gather tension as you play.

Enhance your musicality by bringing long line expressive lyricism, passion, and excitement into your playing.

Significantly enhance your rhythmic energy and flow.

Provide a new musical freedom, personal involvement, and spontaneity in your playing.

Throughout the course of my career in teaching, performing, and speaking I have lead countless students through Pulse Patterning with amazing results.

In my Pulse Patterning instructional video series, comprising 13 chapters spanning approximately 90 minutes, I will lead you through the theory and technique of Pulse Patterning so you and your students can experience the many benefits it provides.

As discussed in the video preview, Pulse Patterning is a systematic pattern of movement derived from a well-known clock exercise by the master practitioner of mind-body awareness, Mosche Feldenkrais. It is the application of this exercise that makes Pulse Patterning so uniquely new and profoundly useful to you as a seated musician. In the video series, among other practical topics I discuss:

The two postures that are habitual and comfortable but lead to fatigue, strain, and injury.

The relationship between musical rhythm and body movement.

The distinction between notated meter and perceived meter.

The case for sitting perfectly still.

Using Pulse Patterning for Effective sight reading and memorization.

Using torso movement to project dynamic shading as well as meter and phrasing.

Pulse Patterning is its own step forward in the evolution of musical performance; never before has this aspect of technique been so thoroughly addressed. My Pulse Patterning video will be an essential part of your technical resources for years to come for yourself and your students.

EARLY YEARS

My earliest childhood memories of musical activity were of dancing and marching about the house playing with my toy drum to the recorded music on radio and stereo. I rocked myself to sleep at night to the lilt of my mother’s piano playing in the living room. Clearly there was an early kinesthetic response to music that later surfaced in many small and large ways. In college I improvised for modern dance classes and then enrolled in the classes myself, later taking introductory ballet as well. I was also extremely intrigued by the “how” of piano technique as taught by my piano professor Stanley Fletcher at the University of Illinois, who first introduced me to the concepts of rotation and in-and-out, and of rhythmic pulsing of the elbows in scalar and passage playing.

In university analysis classes, I studied the theoretical concepts of rhythm that included phrase rhythm and hypermeasures. At Fontainebleau, I further honed my musicianship skills under Nadia Boulanger, learning to do multiple musical tasks separately and at the same time. I still remember, from among Boulanger’s many pithy remarks, “3/4 time is just the same as 2/4 time, except the first beat is twice as long.” Then some years later I discovered the writings of Abby Whiteside and found them to be absolutely illuminating in regards to rhythm with her emphasis on “felt” rhythm.

My first teaching sabbatical took me to New York City to coach with Adele Marcus but also, after years of curiosity, to the Dalcroze School where I became immersed in, and hooked on, the rhythmic movement training of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, the complete course of study consisting of eurhythmics, solfege, and improvisation. I became a licensed Dalcroze instructor more than 40 years ago and have been teaching college level classes in eurhythmics ever since.

It is interesting to note that I have always watched pianists, organists, and instrumentalists with an eye to how they move or do not move as they perform. I have taken note of their postures and their gestures that appeared musically and physically natural and creative, as well as those that seemed to be awkward and counterproductive. I noticed that there often appeared to be a slight rise and fall, and/or a forward and back movement that originated from the piano bench, or in other words from the lower torso: the hips and the pelvis. This would come to have a revelatory significance and meaning after later studying the Feldenkrais clock exercises seated on a chair. Pulse Patterning was about to be born!